The Ultimate Incentive muddles along

roomontheend

Aww, I am so sorry Dinah.  Take some time to look after you.  My daughter uses vinted as you have to pay a fee.  There are a few charities that takes good 2nd hand bras https://goodmakertales.com/donate-old-bras-uk/

wendz86

So sorry to hear your news, always devastating when it is something you want so much.

Second using vinted. Haven't sold on there but have bought and things seem to go for higher prices.

ruby_eskimo

Popping in to also say I'm sorry to hear your news Dinah. 

I'd also third using Vinted.  I've sold on there and had a few issues that they've resolved for me where buyers are trying to get something  for nothing (sold some shoes that the buyer said were listed with the incorrect size, when they very clearly were listed correctly 🙄)  All in all a very smooth way to sell / buy, even if Evri cause some issues from time to time.

Dinah93

So, spent the last week decluttering, I have easily gotten rid of 75% of my clothes. How my wardrobe is still full is a mystery. I'm going to try to get them on vinted or ebay or something over the next few days, but as there's about 250-300 items it could take me a while. 

I'm going to try to spend a bit of time on my actual job today, as well as decluttering the final drawer (socks and tights). 

The job has been an absolute kicker in the last week, two of our venues (leisure centres) have announced they are either closing entirely, or closing from 5pm over the winter, which means we've completely lost our classes in those two locations, a lot of students need refunding as they'd already paid for their next month with us, it's gutting and we're probably going to have to declare that company insolvent as we suddenly have £0 income, huge amounts of refunds, but still have the usual monthly insurances, booking software, email marketing fees etc at the same time one of the venues has slapped us with a suprise £3k bill. 

NIMs payday today, and unless he's earning £15k more in his new job than we thought he was, they've screwed up his paycheck. I feel like I should be happy his paycheck is more than a grand more than expected, but they're just going to claim it back later so we'll have one flush month, and many skinny ones. 

First long miles day for the car yesterday, we bought the long range model, and it claims to get 331 miles to a full charge. It was about 90% full so lets say should have gotten 300 yesterday, however it went to leeds and back (about 140 miles) and then Sunderland (about 50) and it was down to 20% charge where I stuck it on an incredibly fast but expensive fast charger, so looks like we're really getting around 230-240 miles on motorway driving speeds. Still only cost us £12.12 to fill up the car with electricity again, and that's on a charger 3.5x more expensive than the fast charger we usually use, or about 7x more than the cost if we were to get a home EV overnight tarrif (but then also have to spend about £1k getting a home charger installed.... although NIMs work are talking about a scheme where they'll put one into their employees homes for free and then give them a small monthly allowance towards the electric, which would be amazing) 

We are going way, way over our estimated milage on the car (it's just a lease), and we signed up for 12,000 miles a year, currently it looks like we'll actually be closer to 17-18,000 which would cost us an extra £2700 a year in penalty fees, so I think we're going to have to start driving the scrappy run about more even though it's petrol and costly compared to the electric (plus old, unreliable and not as nice to drive). 

So NIMs payday, hasn't changed from olden days, pay day is always my favourite day because I can do the money shuffle. However, !!!!!! me when did life get so expensive? I'm actually going to do a breakdown because I'm a little floored at what I need to pay today and over the next month and it's been many years since I did one of these. 

Today One Offs
DD Brass lessons at school - £115 
DS School Trip £220 (this is a 2 day UK residential, when DD did it 2 years ago it was £160) 
New dance uniform £128 (she's nearly 11, and wearing an age 6 but it's all custom logo gear so I got as much wear as possible from it!)
Top up dinner money for the next month £82.60 (lower than usual due to half term) 
School photos - £108 
Replacement mattress £599 (I know you can get cheaper, but we're on our 3rd mattress in 4 years as the springs keep pokng through, I'm hoping we might get more than 18 months by going with a branded one)
Total - 1252.60

Bills due over the next month 
DD Judo £31 
NIM life insurance £38.70 
Winterflood securities (I have absolutely no clue what this is) £10
Council tax £139 
Medicash healthcare plan £48.40 
DS swimming lessons £44 
DD swimming lessons £44 
Policy Expert (again no clue what this is) £13.99 
Pet insurance £22.90 
Gas & Electric £392 
PPC NIM £10.81 
Media 10 £19 (I think this might be the kids The Week magazine but not certain at all) 
National trust membership £10.50 
Second car road tax £11.81 
Second car insurance £24.50 
Cleaning £240 
Dog walker £104 
Guides £32 
Scouts £24 
Theatre Lessons £120 
Dance lessons £120 
Second dance school £68 
Piano lessons £60 
Parkour £50 
After school club for half term £80-£120 (I don't know if they'll get 3 nights or just 2 yet)
British Gas cover £47.18
My pension £650 
Contact lenses (3 months) £88 
Tesco CC minimum payment £100
Total - £2683.79

Nessesary variables 
Petrol £75
Car charging £60
Food £450
Car service £280ish, and then any work
Total - £865

Savings 
£500 regular saver 
£160 weekly saver 
£100 DS and DD savings 
Total - £760 

Other expected income 
£345.20 DLA 
£145 Child benefit 
My wage £0 (Still can't draw anything with what's going on in the business)
£50 cashback from Medicash for DD glasses
Total - £540.20 

NIMs pay - £4811.84
Leftover money from last month - £110.22

In the next month it's also school holiday, so a couple of days out there, the kids annual halloween party so will need some food for that, podiatrist x2 £90, NIM and the kids are going to Ireland to see his dad, and I'm away for a friends 40th, so 2x airport parking, food over there, some trips for me, so maybe £400 for both, we have 3 children's birthday parties to attend, a weekend in lapland UK, a drive over to chester zoo for the lanterns (lanterns paid for, day entry not yet), realistically we need about £1000 spending money to do the things we want to that aren't accounted for in the regular budget money above. 

Total Income - £5462.26 
Total Expected Outgoings - £6561.39 

Those numbers aren't the right way around are they?! 

So, without my wage we can't live as we want to. With my wage we're bang on. We can make it all balance if we take away almost all discressionary spending. Or we can kick the can down the road on some bits like dance uniform and a mattress. Or I can try to make some extra income. Or the reality is a combo of all 3. 

wendz86

Life really is getting expensive especially when you have kids clubs etc to contend with. Think everyone is going to need to cut down a bit somewhere if possible.
At least with it written down you can have a look at where you can push stuff back, or make extra money as you say.

Dinah93

Within 3 hours my figures are already off, I had a call from the plasterer asking if he can start today not next week. I'd entirely forgot he was booked in. So that's another £400. There are two bits that need doing, one where we had a leak in the extension roof so currently that's a chilly void with no lights until we get a ceiling back in, and then in the hall we replaced the front door but we moved it forward about 45cm as we used to have a tiny porch overhang, and now the front door is flush with the outside wall, but it gives us lots more space inside the hall. 

I have at least sold 2 t-shirts on redbubble this morning, only another 900 or so and the gap will be bridged 

roomontheend

Can you spilt the dance uniform eg just get the top this month and the pants next month?
Can you reduce the dog walking and the cleaning by knocking off a day or two? Your pension and gas/ electric both seem high is there anyway they can be reduced even in the short term? As for the mattress it would be false economy to go for a cheap one, either buy it this month or save half and get it next month.

Dinah93

Dance unfiform they get from a supplier in Australia of all places, so only order twice a year, so it's now or May. I made a small saving on it buying a crop top rather than a vest top. 

The dog walking is the two days NIM is in the office, because I'm very frequently either out teaching, or training, or even just errands I can't be tied to the house, but there's such a wait list for a good walker that we have to have a regular slot or not have it at all, this week she had him while I did a pitch over zoom for 2 hours, and while NIM was in Leeds and I was on training, both out the house for 7 hours +. That's not every week, but I don't want to be turning down work if we don't have him covered. 

Pension yes I could reduce it, but I'm nervous to because I feel like once I start I won't restart it again because there will always be a reason not to, having not paid anything at all for the last 8 years I'm very behind on my contributions. As I don't have an employer to put contributions in mine are higher as it's 100% from my wage. To have an annual pension of £24k I should be paying in over £900 a month. My pension pot only started a few months ago so I have less than £6k saved for retirement and I'm nearly 40. My one from the council is currently expected to pay out £132 a month when I'm 67. So it feels like a double edged sword, reduce now but suffer later. 

We have massively cut down on our gas and electric usage in terms of using the heating in particular, but I don't think we can do much any further. Our actual usage last month was £252, and we had the heating on for under 3 hours in the whole month. We are paying a bit over as I do expect when winter properly comes we will need to have the heating on most days. It's 15C in the house today and we're in big hoodies and hot water bottles but grief my fingers are stiff. 

I appreciate we're in a fortunate position with a higher than average income, no mortgage, and a lot of where our money goes is luxuries. We thought we'd made some headway on reducing the number of kids clubs with the kids stopping judo last month, but DD was hysterical every Tuesday that she was missing it (how much of this is actually enjoying judo and how much is just hating to change to routine through the autism is hard to tell) so we've had to restart it. I really want to get out of her how much she wants to do the school music lessons, as £600+ a year for a group lesson seems very expensive. DS does a lot fewer activities (3x school club then parkour, swimming, football and scouts) so DD with her 2x school club, school music, piano, musical theatre 1, judo, swimming, guides, acting, choir, musical theatre 2, contemportary, ballet, tap, musical theatre 3 is definately the prime focus! The 3 musical theatres and acting are 2 regular classes, then 2 rehersals for 2 different shows she has in December. It's not even just the upfront cost, its the fuel to get there and the time to all of them. She hates unscheduled time though, when shes not busy she tends to have mental health blips so I do understand why she's so reluctant to drop anything as an empty night is torture to her. 

Meeting one of my teachers tomorrow who has been an absolute rock of support, but I feel like I'm using her somewhat at this point, so I need to work out if there is a way forward where she's more aqequately compensated. 

Dinah93

I know it's not the MSE way, but it's my way, that somehow, without warning, something always comes up to work all things out. My bank have for reasons unknown (they will send a letter in a week or two) refunded me £197.31 and £977.78 today. We have two card protection claims in, but they're for £60ish and £210ish so the amounts don't align. So that's this month's budget black hole filled. 

A few more redbubble sales the last few days which is great, it's turned into a little but steady stream of extra income, especially at this time of year. 

Work is a teeny, tiny bit more stable. One of the companies is still 50-50 that it may liquidate, as it's lost all it's venues, but the other 4 seem to be trudging onwards okay.

Dinah93

Another sliver of good news this morning, Shell are putting our direct debit down by £42 a month, to the lowly price of £357 a month, making it now under £300 a month with the government's £66 a month help for the next few months. This is still about £80 a month higher than last month's usage, however we will need the heating on for a bit most days through the winter so I'd expect those months to be £150-£200 higher than at present, so having a little bit banked to help cover that isn't a bad thing.